2018/11/12

RUN

I've written this a good 3 months ago and honestly didn't think that I'd ever publish it. Even though it's been a little while, I still can relate so much to every single word I've written down back then. So here we go...

You can’t run away from problems. You can’t run away from feelings. You can’t run away from yourself and all the decisions you made. But if I learnt one thing over the past week it’s that sometimes, a bit of time and distance can work wonders.

The past year has been without a doubt one of the greatest years of my life. I’ve met so many incredible peoples, moved to my favourite city in the world and have finally started working on my childhood dream of becoming a fashion journalist. Yet, as you probably know if you’ve been keeping up with my blog, it has been quite a tough one as well. When I first moved away from home, I expected it to be hard. I knew that I didn't choose the easiest path and that I had to work hard if I really wanted to succeed.

But it wasn’t only all the work that I struggled with. It was so much more. I don’t really believe in destiny, but I do believe in life. And sometimes, life sucks. Shit happens. And once it happens, all you’ve got left is to decide how you’re going to react to it.

While I feel like career and uni-wise I did pretty well so far for myself, I can resume everything that happened elsewise with one word: loss. Friends, family, relationships. I used to think that by the time you hit your 20s, you pretty much know who you are and what you want from life. I knew what I wanted from life since I was about 10. I lost myself in the process of going for it.

My life as I’ve known it started to fall apart over this year and instead of trying to figure stuff out, I did the complete opposite. I ran away. Every occasion I got, I went home. And I made some really bad choices. I compromised my principles. I started to work extensively, to a point where it wasn’t healthy anymore. It helped me to get closer to my dreams. And it helped me to forget my problems. But it didn't solve anything else and in the long run, it didn't help me to feel better about myself and my life.

I kept on having nightmares. Every single night, I would wake up at some point, confused and often crying. I was working pretty much full-time while trying to please everybody around me. I was trying to be there for everyone. Everyone except myself. And if somebody was asking me how I was doing, I’d lie to their face, saying I was okay. You can pretend that everything is alright as long as you don’t think or talk about it. As soon as you start talking, things get real. And I was afraid of realising what has happened, of having to face it. So I lied to everybody, but mostly to myself.

I’m currently in the Dominican Republic while I’m writing this. It’s 4.12 am and once again, I can’t sleep. It’s been the first week where I’ve allowed myself to not work, to think about nothing but myself and everything that has happened over the past year. And slowly but surely, I feel like everything that I tried to make myself believe is crumbling. I am starting to crumble.

And you know what I realised? It’s alright. It’s okay to feel down, to be hurt, to cry and to talk. It’s okay to not have everything figured out; it's okay to not be “okay” all the time. Because sooner or later, everything that you’re trying to suppress is going to come back, or even worse, it’s going to haunt you during the night as long as you don’t allow yourself to process it during the day. Your problems will follow you no matter how far you run and how badly you try to bury them.

You know what I realised as well? It gets easier. No matter what you’re going through right now, it will get easier with time. You just have to allow yourself to feel the pain in the first place. Give yourself some time to heal, and trust me, miracles happen from the moment you decide to feel.